


You Don't Look Like a Bodyguard

by join_the_conga



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bodyguard, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25891252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/join_the_conga/pseuds/join_the_conga
Summary: The new bodyguard doesn’t wear a suit. Doesn't look a hundred years old. Doesn't frown in the quiet all day long.And he doesn’t take a single ounce of shit from any of the Wayne boys. Not even from Dick.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 63
Kudos: 586
Collections: JayDick Summer Exchange 2020





	You Don't Look Like a Bodyguard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pastelfeathers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelfeathers/gifts).



> Thank you to pastelfeathers for the fun Jaydick prompts. Hope you enjoy Part 1 here!

Bruce Wayne, draped in black like a mourner or a preacher, stands before a pool of swarming sharks with press badges. He twists an immaculate suit cuff back into position. Chums the early morning waters with a cleared throat into his microphone.

“Starting now and from this moment on, Wayne Enterprises will cease any and all commercial and business dealings with Sionis Industries, LexCorp., and any subsidiaries of their ilk. This includes all freight and container storage logistics, supply chain agreements, research and tech development initiatives, and any other financial partnerships between WE and the aforementioned companies.”

A frenzied clacking of camera shutters. Could so many flashing lights burn the skin?

Bruce Wayne continues, standing straighter. “Wayne Enterprises works tirelessly to provide technologies and research essential to the proliferation of renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, and other technologies designed to make life better for all. We do that while cultivating a welcoming, supportive workplace for our immensely talented employee base. We do that by working with like-minded partners on every scale, from small nonprofits in Iowa researching biofuels and biodegradable plastics, all the way up to America’s largest community foundations, connecting low-income families with energy efficient technologies and mobility options. We do that to make a brighter future, for Gotham City and beyond. We invest in exceptional people and exceptional products, because we know that’s how we make a positive change.

“And so we will not miss any former partners who have knowingly supported or taken part in business practices damaging to the global environment. We will not miss former partners whose very ethos is detrimental to impoverished people seemingly a world away. We will not miss former partners who profit off of an underpaid, poorly treated workforce or a devastated local ecosystem. To be blunt—in light of recent events, we are happy to kick Sionis and LexCorp to the curb. May the door hit them on the way out.”

Chatter. Gasps. Scribblings pens scattered between tightly gripped recorders thrust up to heaven. More camera flashes.

An unruffled Bruce Wayne grips the edges of the podium and leans in. “Questions?”

“Mr. Wayne! Mr. Wayne! When you say cease dealings—”

“—alleged forced labor—”

“—contaminated soil and watershed—”

“Mr. Wayne, what is the workforce impact of such a—”

“—factory fire, seventy dead—”

“Mr. Wayne! Can you comment on—”

“—alleged blackmail by Sionis against—”

“—LexCorp. whistleblower has gone missing—”

“What does the WE board say—”

“Mr. Wayne—”

Clark Kent, Daily Planet, rushes to the front of the proceedings. He’s big enough to part the crowd. He’s familiar enough to draw Bruce’s attention. “Mr. Wayne,” he says as quietly as he can, eyebrows pitched in panic, “you need to check your phone.”

A pause for confusion. Or dread.

Bruce Wayne checks his phone. All the reporters within listening distance check their phones. Silently, a number of uniformed officers process in from the press lounge doors, approach the wings of the stage with grim faces. A police chief is among them. Her hat is in her hands. The shouts of the crowd swell, rippling from the pool of eavesdroppers at the front to the wall of spectators at the back, amplifying like a tsunami approaching shore. Bruce Wayne is pale, hands white-knuckled around his cell phone, lips parted in slow terror.

“Mr. Wayne!” someone cries. “Is it true that your son has been shot in the line of duty?”

#

Tim’s got his headphones on and cranked, computer in his lap as he squirms into a golden lounge chaise. He’d dragged it last year from a guest bedroom to the foot of his own shiny four-poster. None of the furniture in the manor is ever as comfortable as it is pretty, you know? But Tim had made this couch his own, stains from coffee and leaking pens as territory marked.

So preoccupied by his search for a comfortable seating position, he almost doesn’t notice his bedroom door swinging open, silently, eerily. A short, glaring demon peers in from the hall. The demon wears an oversized Cheese Vikings shirt and plaid pajama shorts. It’s eight AM on a newly minted Saturday, and they’re both supposed to be getting ready for a day full of Wayne Foundation appearances scheduled to smooth over whatever fallout comes from Bruce’s press briefing this morning. But...

“He’s meditating again,” Damian mutters.

Tim yawns. “Like an elf from fifth edition. They can meditate for four hours, and then they don’t have to sleep for the rest of the day.”

“This isn’t your stupid dungeon thing, Drake,” Damian spits, squint beady and glaring from the doorframe.

Tim ignores him, sips from a thermos he snatches from the floor. “In Dungeons and Dragons, the elves retain semi-consciousness the whole time,” he explains. It’s the one fantasy power Tim wishes he had. His hand micro-flexes around the thermos with espresso jitters.

“Pennyworth said you’re not supposed to have coffee without supervision,” Damian sniffs. He saunters into the room now like a king, scoffing and stepping over each pile of dirty laundry and books strewn across the expensive, patterned carpeting. Tim lurches to save his game files and Roll20 character sheets in case Damian gets any ideas about fucking with his laptop again. The little demon gets closer.

“And Alfred also said you’re not supposed to be stalking the bodyguards off hours anymore,” Tim points out.

This gets Damian to stop his trek over the debris of Tim’s school week. He crosses his arms and glares some more. “Don’t play with me, Drake. You’re just as invested as me in figuring _this_ one out.”

Tim sniffs. Takes another sip.

The demon brat is exaggerating. Of the two of them, only Damian lives out his fantasy of crawling along the dark corridors of the manor like a ninja, tracking his prey that took shape in the hulking shoulders of their newest, mysterious bodyguard. Tim does his best to remain unmoved by the never-ending parade of frowny adults wearing ugly office suits that were strapped up with side-arms. It’s hard to get attached to any of them, anyway. For the most part, the bodyguards take pains not to stick out from their pack. They cycle on and off shift like clockwork. They certainly don’t talk to their boss’s kids. Even when said kids make their lives hell.

Make no mistake—Tim and Damian are adversaries. As a team, though, especially with their big brother leading them, they gelled so nicely against a common foe. It became a time-honored Wayne son tradition to test the bodyguards. Simple things, small things, (mostly) innocent. Like playing the same blasting K-pop song all afternoon, their ears blocked with high-end noise-cancelling headphones while the guards had to stand by on alert. Or entering one room, leaving the guard at the door, and crawling into hidden attic spaces only to appear in another room altogether, spinning yarns about secret passageways to keep the help guessing. Or sneaking around the surveillance room and swapping out the monitors’ feeds to play The Bodyguard—definitely the scene with Whitney Houston belting out “I Will Always Love You.” That one had been Dick’s idea, before he got too cool for school and waltzed out the manor door several years back. Each of the boys had earned hot water for that one. But not before Bruce had wiped the bodyguard team for all new hires, because why would he pay for supposed professionals who were “foiled by children.”

With time (and Dick gone), it was rarely fun to mess with them anymore. Or at least Tim had grown out of it. He had! The bodyguards had become a repeating magic eye picture that quietly blended into the periphery of his life and could only be seen if he cared to look hard enough—until Jason Todd.

Todd was a newer asset. Not just in that he hadn’t been on the Wayne payroll for very long—only for a few months at most. But also because he was something of a mystical creature that the manor has never seen before.

A live-in bodyguard with an actual personality. And an edge over both the Wayne boys remaining in the house.

He had showed up late at night slung over an expensive-looking bike, which Bruce had allowed him to park in the garage with the rest of the Wayne vehicle collection. It had been the very same night that Bruce had sat Tim and Damian down at the table in the kitchen, coaxed with Alfred’s hot chocolate to get along for at least the five minutes Bruce’d need to hold their attention for a conversation full of euphemism and hand-waving platitudes. It was the night when Bruce explained that things at work had been changing, that the company was working on an announcement that would “shake things up a little, boys.”

“And so we’re getting a few more helpers,” Bruce had said. Actually said “helpers,” like Tim and Damian were both still in diapers and couldn’t tell what a gun holster was or that it was strange to be surrounded by stoic ex-marines wearing them on their hips while the kids chowed down on Captain Crunch at the breakfast table, sans busy father, aloof butler, or rebellious brother. Tim and Damian had eyed each other over the rims of their cocoa mugs. Swiped the backs of their hands against their mouths in tandem to wipe away the marshmallow froth and any involuntary frowns of irritation with their dad.

“What about Grayson?” Damian had asked. Tim had looked deep into the dregs of his chocolate, daydreamed about coffee and his big brother’s laugh.

Bruce had cringed. “Dick is… staying at work in Bludhaven. He has a job. Can’t just come back here anytime things get tough, can he?”

Those had definitely been Dick’s words, parroted back to them with Bruce as reluctant mouthpiece.

Then an engine had come screaming up the drive. Fortunately, they had all been saved from further family discussion by the arrival of one Jason Todd.

He hadn’t stuck out immediately—beyond the all-too-dramatic entrance, of course, when he came barreling in on the back of a Ducati so red that it had to be bound for hell. Bruce had even pursed his lips at the sight, expecting to seeing his people arrive in sedate, black, and chunky SUVs. Damian had been immediately intrigued, of course. So Tim had to humor his younger brother in his initial investigations. Right?

Several military-looking bags and hefty cases showed up over the week following, packed away into Todd’s room. Tim and Damian had tried to open one left alone in the manor entryway while Jason was unloading gear on the other side of the house. They’d gotten as far as shimming the first lock when they both jerked back their hands, each crouching boy now on his ass in surprise, fingers numb from an invisible shock delivered by the case’s otherwise unremarkable padlock. Tim swore up a storm, shaking out his wrists, while Damian angrily shoved the box away with a slippered foot.

“Curiosity killed the cat, boys,” Todd had said wryly from behind them, leaning against the doorframe and barely holding back a laugh. He’d clearly been there long enough to watch the boys attempt to break into the case.

Tim and Damian had shared a dark look. They had never been bested by a bodyguard before.

But since then, they had never managed to catch the man off-guard. They sneak into his room at 2 AM to dress up his combat boots with peanut butter? Not only is the guy awake, he’s also booby-trapped a pile of Red Bull cans by the door to crash down upon intruder entry. They hide away when they know his assignment is to escort them in a timely fashion out to a family photo op? He helps himself to both the slices of Alfred’s chocolate cake that were supposed to be a reward for the boys’ cooperation. They manage to slip an angry bull snake in between his sheets? He shows up early the next morning passing it calmly between his hands, the thing languidly slithering and tongue-flicking, and then he makes Tim and Damian get out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn to bring him and the snake to the fallen tree at the edge of the property from which they’d collected the serpent. He follows up with making the boys take a jog around the manor perimeter with him for early morning exercise. Let’s them mercifully go once they’ve completed lap two of the ninety acre property.

Their latest stunt had been to sneak Danger Diablo’s Chest Hair Scorcher hot sauce into Todd’s prized gunmetal coffee thermos. Bruce had been with Tim at the breakfast table that day none-the-wiser, Damian elsewhere in the manor to film Todd’s immediate reaction. But when Todd had walked into the kitchen with his thermos, he had approached not the sink to pour out his ruined coffee but the pantry instead. Damian had followed the bodyguard in a daze, held back aghast from the doorway. Todd had stared Tim in the eye as he uncorked the Diablo and poured the rest of the bottle slowly into his coffee cup. Took a big gulp. Let loose one of those exaggerated _sip-ahhs!_ of refreshment. Walked out of the room with the refilled thermos, noogie-ing Damian still at the door, a camera phone slack in Damian’s grasp. Bruce’s gaze had bounced between his boys like a ping-pong ball. “What the hell are you two doing to that poor man?”

Now, Tim takes another sip of coffee. Thinks of the hot sauce again and shudders on the inside. Says to Damian, “Still not giving up on catching him up one, huh?”

Damian hisses. “ _Never_.” Picks his footing over a particularly smelly gym bag, Tim’s cleats spilling out of the half-zipped main pouch. “Now then, Drake, I have a new plan. Step one: we get Todd’s phone. Step two—”

The bedroom door bursts open, slamming against Tim’s bedroom wall and the Mars Rover Curiosity poster Tim had put up to cover that same kind of door dent. Jason is there. He’s actually stern for once. And for a moment, Tim wonders if Damian has already executed step one with the phone and has brought Tim some wrath to share. But then Jason bypasses them both to do a quick check on the window.

It’s only then that Tim notices the gun in Jason’s hand, pointed at the ground, safety off.

Apparently seeing nothing, Jason turns back to them. Holsters the firearm when he sees Tim already up, he and Damian cozied up and near cowering in confusion and fear in the corner furthest from a door or window.

Jason delivers orders. “Grab what you can from this room. Books. A game. Definitely your phones. You got fifteen seconds.”

It’s Tim’s room, but he helps Damian load up with old Gameboys and a few books he might enjoy. Tim’s got his computer and a Nintendo Switch. And then Jason is back out the door, clearing the hall before gesturing for them to follow.

He leads them deep into the manor. To Bruce’s study. While Jason stands guard at the door, Damian and Tim hurry to open the panic room, hidden behind Bruce’s grandfather clock.

They all scuttle in. Jason secures the clock, then the door. The temperature and humidity are a sterile nothing—not too hot, not too cold, not too musty, not too fresh. Even though there is plenty of room to spread out, they sit in a row on one of the gray bench beds, backs propped up against the wall. Todd is in the middle, an arm each wrapped around his charges.

“Your dad doesn’t want me to say,” Todd tells them. “But, me… I’d want to know. Dick was shot.”

Damian is a demon most of the time, but he’s only thirteen, and he’s well past tearing up. Tim tears up, too. He thinks his heart must be like a rabbit’s heart, feeling all tiny and fast. Jason squeezes them both tighter.

“He’s okay, but he’s in the hospital. He was on-duty at the time, and it’s been made up to look like a rando shooting. But we think that it’s Luther, or Sionis, or maybe both of them behind it after your dad’s press announcement this morning. So we’re gonna stay here until we know more. M’kay?”

Tim leans against Todd for a few minutes. Reaches one arm past the bodyguard to grip at Damian’s sleeve. Thinks about how Dick had held he and Dami like this a few times before. Like at the drive-in theater during the 3 AM showing of The Exorcist. Or like at the park when they thought they had lost Ace, but really the hound had already found his way home. He'd held them so tight, but only ever for small things. Stupid things that didn’t end up with anything all that bad. But never for anything like this.

After some time, Tim says to Jason’s shoulder, “I’m sorry about the hot sauce,” because he can’t think of anything else to say.

Jason laughs in surprise, and Tim can feel Damian hug in tighter. “Don’t worry about it, guys. I don’t mind a little spice.” Tim and Damian cry into his shoulders, and Todd tells them their brother, their family, is going to be okay.

#

Thirteen hours pass. Tim’s laptop dies after six, and he’s roped into meditation led by Jason and Damian.

The panic room intercom goes off at hour fourteen. It’s Bruce’s voice. He’s tired. “Wayne to Red. All clear.”

Jason ushers Tim and Damian into the corner. Unholsters his gun and peers at the tiny screen showing the camera feed from right outside the panic room door. He presses the button to respond. “T and D secure. Step back.”

The doors open. And even though it’s been fourteen hours of intermittent crying, Tim and Damian still have rivers of tears to bury into their father’s chest. “Dick is fine,” Bruce says. “I promise, we’re all going to be safe.”

#

Alfred and several of the Sunglasses Squad show up at Dick’s pigsty Bludhaven apartment in a discretely armored Rolls Royce with two empty suitcases and a thirty-minute timetable. Dick only just doesn’t slam the door in their grim faces.

He sets the first bag on the bathtub rim with his one good arm, the other crossed over his chest in a heavy black cast and sling. He stuffs the bag full of dirty clothes (his only clothes) and then some toiletries. Hears the distant clinking of someone moving the dirty dishes he hasn’t gotten around to yet. Dick only just doesn’t crawl away through the bathroom window.

Dick spends too long on his bedroom floor searching for matching socks amidst forgotten books and papers, coffeeshop receipts, and worn out running shoes he never bothered to throw out. Then he hears Alfred start up a vacuum in the living room. Dick only just doesn’t storm out and rip the power chord from the wall.

He barely has enough time to turn down the thermostat and lock up. Then he’s escorted by a pair of Jason Stathams to the back of the silent Rolls. One of whom is carrying a haunted pothos that Dick refused to leave behind, drooping but not dead, its vines spilling out of a heavy clay pot bulky enough to be a nuisance in the mitts of his hired sitters. Dick only just doesn’t throw open the door as they round the corner near the 4th avenue subway station. The car was probably locked from the inside anyway.

Dick rubs his aching shoulder. “This is why I left, Alfred. This isn’t fair.”

Alfred doesn’t even look into the rearview mirror. “I’m aware, Master Dick. It can continue to not be fair at the manor, where you and your brothers are safe.”

Dick snorts.

“The way I see it, you staying here endangers both you and your fellow officers.” That’s what Chief had told him this morning, when he’d tried to check in at work. He’d gotten there after only three days of hospital bed rest and a successful sneak check past the familiar Wayne personal security force so that he could sign a patient discharge form against doctor’s orders. What can he say? Dick’s used to weaving past the Squad.

But. “You’re on leave,” Chief had said. Firmly stared Dick down. Waved his hand to shoo Dick to the door. “Stay home. Rest. And stay off my streets for the time being, huh?”

Dick cringes, and only just doesn’t kick the back of the seat in front of him. He mimes handcuffs snapping around his wrists. Makes the slow-mo sound effects for his audience. “ _Cli-i-ick, ca-chink. Cli-i-i-i-ick, ca-chink…_ Here, sparky, catch!” He throws an imaginary key to one of the Sunglasses Squad. The woman doesn’t react.

Alfred stops at a red light. He finally catches Dick’s eye in the rearview mirror and pantomimes dangling some invisible keys. Opens his mouth and swallows them with a quiet gulp. Pats the corners of his lips with a pretend handkerchief like a proper gentleman. Dick can’t help smiling, even as he glares.

Dick lets a few more miles pass. They’re getting further out into the suburbs, closer to the Wayne estate than he has been in months. “So. How long this time?”

The Squad is a troupe of mannequins. One of the less plastic ones coughs into his own shoulder. Alfred sighs. “That remains to be seen. Your father is rooting out the perpetrators with the police and his own private security. He’s working as quickly as he can to tie them back to whoever is behind it—since it was likely a hired job. But it could take time.”

“It was a for-hire job, believe me,” Dick says. “Guys on the street don’t usually have access to Burberry trench coats. And they definitely aren’t that itchy to shoot a cop in broad daylight two blocks from the city police garage.”

“Mm,” Alfred murmurs in agreement. “Nor are such men likely to evade capture in said predicament.”

“So… what?” Dick asks again. “We assume it’s Sionis or Luther? Or both? And then me and Tim and Dami just live in hiding for the rest of our lives while Bruce tries to put up walls between Gotham and two of today’s largest global business enterprises? Yeah. Seems like that option’s a non-starter.”

Alfred, who has dialed up Bruce on the town car’s speaker system, lets the voice on the phone respond. “And that’s why the real plan is to dismantle both Sionis Industries and LexCorps from the inside. Or at least from the top.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you’re right, why didn’t I think of that as the completely realistic next step? Tell me, am I supposed to be able to re-enter society sometime in the next year?”

“I’m sorry you got hurt, Dick,” Bruce’s grim voice tells him over the stereo. “Truly more sorry and angry and scared than you will ever know. But I need you to be patient. I need you to set an example for your brothers and cooperate. I’m not losing any of you to these mad men. Understood?”

Dick sighs. Thinks about Timmy and Dami, huddled in the house all alone while they must have waited for word of his survival. “Understood… for now. You gonna bother to be home tonight?”

Bruce’s voice betrays a breath of relief. “Yes, tonight. I’ll be there. But I have to go now. I love you.” And the phone line cuts off before Dick can respond.

Dick looks out the window. Counts a few passing trees. Tells the driver, “You and I dip into the cognac when he’s not here by 10 PM, Alfred.”

“Oh, Master Dick. Have some faith, yes?”

#

Tim greets Dick by planting his forehead square into Dick’s chest. Dick sighs and reaches up to scratch the back of Tim’s scalp, pulling him in for a hug.

Dick fists Tim’s fine, scraggly hair and gives a little yank. “Getting a little long there, Timmers?”

Tim grunts, wrapping his arms around his big brother. He doesn’t let go after two seconds, like he usually would.

Dick sighs. Pets and scritches Tim’s head like a dog, Tim’s hair slipping through his fingers in porcupine spikes. “Tim… I’m here, alright? I’m fine.” He even kisses Tim’s forehead, like Tim is still under the double-digits in age and is crying over losing a contraband painted turtle somewhere in the manor ballroom. “I swear I’m fine.”

“You could have not been fine,” Tim mumbles.

Dick’s second sigh is the cold North wind. “I _am_ fine. And I’m here now.”

“You don’t want to be here.”

“…I’m here for as long as I need to be. And we’ll stay safe. Promise.”

The pair don’t jump when a bratty set of narrow shoulders squeezes between their embrace, Damian trying to dislodge Tim and soak up Dick’s affection. Dick wraps his good arm around his brothers. Kisses them both on the tops of their heads.

Damian doesn’t hiss, but he does tell Tim that he smells like B.O. and should relieve the rest of the household by taking a shower. Tim squawks, and Dick halts their slap fight before it gets out of hand.

“Damian! Go grab Alfred and see if he can join us for hot chocolate.”

Once Damian leaves, Dick pats Tim’s shoulder. “And, Timmy. You could smell fresher. Just saying.” And then he gives Tim a noogie with his good arm before laughing and bounding out of the room, an indignant little brother hot on his heels.

#

Tim, headphones on and face deep in Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch, runs into Dick before the staircase on his way to snagging some Saturday morning snacks. Dick is dressed in black and blue compression pants and a tight, soft white tee that Tim knows will probably be ditched the second Dick starts warming up in the gym. He still has his cast, but the sling is mysteriously missing. There’s no way that would get past an Alfred inspection, but who is he to hold Dick to the flame?

“The gym, huh?” Tim says, looking up at Dick while spamming the B button to get in-game Blathers to shut up. “It might not be free, just saying.”

Dick narrows his eyes. “It's busy? It’s the manor’s private gym.”

Tim knows what Dick’s not saying. _It’s my gym. _And it is. Bruce had it built for him at the back of the manor once he saw the therapeutic value of the gymnastics equipment on baby Dick’s ‘tude.

Blathers continues to squawk in his headphones.

“Um. Well, Todd—I mean, Bruce has let some of the private security that live onsite use it in their off-time.”

“ _Ugh_. Already, the Squad invades my life. Shall we have a walk-and-talk on the way, Timmers?”

Tim follows, presses more buttons on the Switch. “Yeah, I mean, the gym is technically open for all of the Sunglasses, but Todd’s the only one who’s ever really used it. It’s cool, though—like, Todd’s cool, y’know?”

Dick pauses in confusion before he slides down the bannister. Tim slides after him. “Who’s Todd?” Dick asks at the bottom, voice heavy with skepticism. Uh-oh. Tim finally looks down to put the Switch into sleep mode, cutting off Blathers for good.

“I mean… maybe he’s not in there right now?”

Unlikely. The man is like a machine with his routine. He is probably in hour two of his Saturday morning toning session. Damian’s a brat, and it’s definitely his fault that Tim knows this.

Dick arches an eyebrow. Then he shakes his head and starts past Tim down the second set of stairs, this time actually walking, albeit two steps at a time. “I’m _going_ to use the gym,” he calls over his shoulder. “We’ll all just have to share, won’t we?”

Tim hurries to follow. This should be good.

They run into Damian on the landing. “I heard you two, you know. And Alfred _and_ Father said not to bother the bodyguards in their off-hours.”

Dick scoffs and takes their uncharacteristic care for the bodyguards as permission to zip down the bannister again. From the bottom of the staircase, he calls up to his little brothers. “Okay, since when are you two so hyped on the Sunglasses Squad? You two get brainwashed or something? I mean, have you even bothered giving old Todd here the usual tests?”

Damian budges Tim to slide down the bannister first. Damian touches down, and all three of them freeze when they hear Alfred’s wingtip shoes clicking past a nearby hallway. Tim bites his lip from the top of the landing. Damian, at the bottom, crosses his arms, looking all smug. He raises a challenging eyebrow while Dick looks on, silently laughing. Tim glares and quickly hurls himself down the bannister, landing quiet as a cat. Alfred’s clicking shoes grow fainter as he continues to walk away.

Damian picks back up the conversation. “Listen, Grayson, Todd is nigh unflappable. We’ve thrown everything at him, even some new tricks, and he never slips up! It’s amazing.”

“Yeah,” Tim agrees—maybe a little too eagerly, when he sees Dick’s growing skepticism (and a hint of disgust). “I mean. Jason—Todd is alright, you know? He’s never gotten all pissy at us for trying to mess with him. And half the time, he knows what we’re planning anyway. And he was really… I mean, the night that… I mean. I guess he’s just been cool.”

Damian is silent at this, but Dick sticks out his tongue to blow a loud, incredulous raspberry. He pauses to place one leg on the bannister, leaning into a stretch. “So you two have been abducted by aliens and swapped out with these close-to-human replicants. Almost had me fooled, fellas, but the jig is up. You’re both officially wet blankets. Alien scum!”

Tim and Damian flip Dick off behind his back. “I’m not saying we’re cool with the Squad now, man! We’re just…”

“Don’t speak for me, Drake!” Damian says. He puts his middle finger away to circle round to Dick’s front, beaming up at him for all the attention. “I am perfectly happy to continue testing Todd. You will help me, of course, Grayson.” Then Damian sniffs. “You can pout in your room if you want to, Drake,” he tosses over his shoulder.

“Shut up, Demon. And you said it yourself—Bruce doesn’t want us messing with them when they’re supposed to be off. We can probably all go to the gym later, right? Together, for fun or something?”

Dick, who has stretched both legs at this point, rolls his eyes and grits his teeth. He rushes ahead, clearly in a state of mind all too familiar for his brothers—fired up at Bruce and ready to dish out on the rest of the world standing in the way. Tim and Damian exchange glares and follow after him.

Dick calls out, “Fuck that. It’s the manor’s gym, which means it's open to all. So fuck that, and fuck Bruce.”

But when the gym doors swing open, revealing Jason Todd in painted-on running shorts and nothing else, knees hooked over one of Dick’s parallel bars with hefty thighs clenched just north of a crunching eight-pack and Jason’s undulating torso, arms tatted up and folded behind a head of thick, dark, sweaty hair, Tim hears Dick mutter, “Fuck me.”

Then, “You didn’t hear that,” to Tim. Forgetting for the moment that Damian is standing right next to them both, balking at every word.

At the sound of the doors, Todd finishes his rep and swings himself down to the red and blue mats. He’s panting when he swipes a hand over his sweaty brow. He raises one hand in greeting while he turns to snag his bottle of water for a quick drink.

“Your drool is collecting in a puddle at our feet, Grayson,” Damian whispers. Dick bats away at the air near his brothers as a signal for them to leave him be. He approaches the mostly naked bodyguard.

Tim and Damian don’t leave. “And here we see the peacock begin its mating dance,” Tim murmurs in a snooty British accent, cringing as Dick runs his hand through his hair in faux bashfulness.

“No,” Damian says, more Australian and still just as quiet, grimacing when Todd arches an interested eyebrow at Dick’s tight gym clothes and starts gesturing to the various pieces of gymnastics equipment around the room. “We’re going down under to watch these two young crocs have a go at establishing their territory.”

Tim considers. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I mean, it’s probably both.”

Damian wrinkles his nose. They both watch Dick lean in too close to shake Todd’s hand. Todd and Dick look like they’re squeezing the shit out of each other’s palms, all while giving each other lengthy once-overs.

“Crikey,” Tim says. Damian pretends to gag. At least, Tim thinks he’s pretending.

#

Tim and Damian evacuate one Todd and Dick start “helping each other stretch.” It had looked like a confusing mix of pressing up against each other flirts and coaxing stretches from each other just past comfortable poses to see who flinched first. Tim couldn’t watch it progress any longer, and Damian had followed suit behind him and out the door.

Even though Tim had told Damian to get lost a half hour ago, they are both still holed up in Tim’s room on their various electronic devices when Dick slips in. Dick is sweaty, unkempt. Maybe from a vigorous workout. Maybe from something else. Tim tries not to think about it.

“Alight, guys,” Dick says, eyes bright. “I need a list of everything you guys have cooked up for one Jason Todd, bodyguard, so far. This is officially a war.”


End file.
